Derek Schauland, MVP | Technically Speaking

Symantec Backup Exec Brings Backup down to 1U

on August 15, 2011

Because backing up data is something that goes without question. Sure care should be taken to select the right software and media to ensure your (or your organization’s) data is regularly backed up. Imagine if there was a single solution allowing easy management and usage.

Symantec Backup Exec Appliance

Symantec Backup Exec is coming to a new single U / single SKU appliance that will manage your backups and restores.

The Symantec Backup Exec v3600 is designed to take the management pain out of backing up data. By including all of the agent licenses for Windows and Exchange and SQL (among others) there is no guessing and ordering to ensure that the correct licensing exists. The goal of the device is to simply do backups and restores after a little configuration.

Configuration

Getting the appliance up and running requires knowledge of your network and an available IP address for the device. It does need to be on the same subnet as the other devices (the remote agents) that you will be backing up. Once this is configured, build your backup jobs and get them scheduled.

Storage

This appliance will manage 5.5 TB of backup deduplicated data, which for many SMB organizations is plenty of storage space. Because the data is deduped the storage space is increased even further. The disk based nature of the appliance makes for improved backup and recovery speed. But be aware that in the first implementation there is no tape support. Backup data can be migrated to a USB drive or replicated to other Symantec Backup Exec appliances, the cloud through a few different hosts, or a USB drive.

The backup data will be deduplicated before it heads off to the cloud, based on the cost of bandwidth to get data onto a cloud service, this is kind of a big deal. For an extremely small organization the cloud might be a good off-site option, but for many I feel that even deduped data will be to expensive to send there. The inclusion of a cloud option may be a great decision going forward when cloud services get cheap enough to allow this type of thing.

Simple and all inclusive backup and easy restores appears to be the goal, but there are some caveats there as well.

Also, you cannot use SAN storage for backups from the device. Once the internal storage is full, that’s all she wrote. Adding the ability to use existing SAN storage once the internal storage gets to a certain percentage (say 80%) would be a huge step forward. Personally, I think that the backup jobs should be flushed to an archive regularly enough where rolling over-writes (similar to recycling tapes) can happen to reuse space for more recent backup data. If it is important for posterity, archiving is the way to go.

Not expandable

The v3600 is not expandable. The out-of-box configuration is as good as it gets, which is a little dissapointing given that the appliance is so straightforward. While looking at the demo of this applicance, I also came across a Dell offering powered by Backup Exec that seemed a bit larger than the v3600.

Tape Support

I know that many organizations are moving (or have moved) away from tape and even many who attended Tech Field Day with me were quite vocal about getting away from tape, but what about as an archival solution?

While I also know that backup is not a legitimate archival solution, bringing some archival to the appliance, to allow for backups to have a scheduled archival from the v3600 to a tape library or drive for easy off site archival of data would be a great addition to this already interesting appliance.

Central Administration… not included

For those of you using many Symantec Backup Exec media servers and central administration to manage all of these, this license is not included with the v3600 and will need to be purchased separately. Might still be worth considering if there are going to be other media servers within your environment.

I would like to see a slimmed down version of the CA server on the appliance so that it can be the one stop shop and manage all of your other media servers (if any). Maybe the device detects other Symantec Backup Exec servers in an environment and prompts to enable the central administration features if needed.

How does dedupe happen?

Looking back at deduplication which is a nice feature given the finite amount of storage included, the process for dedupe is to point the backup jobs needing to be deduplicated at a predetermined folder on the device. When jobs use this folder, the data will be deduplicated. Thats a pretty cool idea. The use case I can think of for this would be an mailbox backup job. Duplicate messages would be taken care of automatically. Hopefully when used with email or other common sources of duplicate files, the rehydration of restored data is optional or at least configurable to allow dupes to be skipped going back to Exchange.

Support and Maintenance

There will be 1 year and 3 year options for support available as a separate purchase. At first I wasn’t sure this would work, having the support separate, but thinking about it further it makes sense to allow support to be optional. This way it can be used when needed. Suppose you have the appliance for a few years with a support contract, if other things come up and the solution no longer fits or will be used only for a certain situation, the support can be changed to a lesser plan (if you have the 3 year option) or discontinued as needed.

Final Thoughts

I am definitely interested in seeing pricing and a bit more about the Symantec Backup Exec appliance. When that happens I will consider it to possibly become a part of disaster recovery planning. I do not think at this time it will completely replace the media server we have today, but when my organization goes virtual the data portion, file servers and things that users cannot live without might be great candidates for an all in one appliance. I will definitely keep it in mind.

Filed Under: Storage, TechFiedlDay, Technet Tagged With: Backup Exec, Disaster Recovery, Symantec, Tech Field Day

When I’m told something isn’t supported, I might try it anyway

on August 9, 2011

Recently I was working on a project to get an application prepared for rollout. When I received the initial email about the process that needed to be followed, I called the vendor to find out if our usual server configuration would work or if different considerations would be needed. Specifically we are considering virtualization in the future using Windows Server 2008 R2 guest machines.

The response I received was that this application would support Windows Server 2008 but not Windows Server 2008 R2. I asked about plans to support R2 and was told that the application would not support Server 2008 R2 for some time. In other words they have no plans right now to support it.

My first thought was that this was a bit of an odd practice since Windows Server 2008 R2 is the current version of Server OS from Microsoft. Then I got to thinking about some of the considerations I might need to make to work this application. The only testing to be done is to ensure that the application, once installed, communicates to its supported devices over our network.

My plan is to set the application up using a Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtual Machine just to see if it will even run. If it doesn’t work, a 2008 VM will be tested, but since the functionality of the application is very limited in scope, I thought it was worth a shot. My goal is to spin up a 2008 R2 guest for this testing very soon (next week sometime).

I also started thinking about the difference between “not supported” and does not work. There are many applications that vendors no longer support and configurations they choose not to support that work just fine. Case in point, Windows 2000. Microsoft doesn’t support Windows 2000 anymore. But if I install it, it will run just like it was 1999.

If an application can run on an operating system one step (or half step) prior to current, there are few things that would make it unusable on the current OS. This to me, warrants giving it a shot. I believe that the requirements I got didn’t rule out x64 architecture, thus making it likely to work just fine on the current version of Windows Server. This way all of the servers in our upcoming environment will be consistent on the same OS (for a little while anyway). I also have to admit there are times when I like a challenge… and this is one of those times.

When considering supported applications, it is generally good to follow supported guidelines given by the manufacturer. When the application or vendor provides no technical reasoning or explanation for this choice, it might be worth a try. It comes down to the cost of your time and availability of your resources. If you have the time and resources to test, go for it. If not, well, convenience (and downgrade rights) say that following the stated guidelines is the easiest course.

Applications like VMware do not work on things outside their stated hardware compatibility list. Sure there are some who might be able to work on the edges of that list, but mostly it is definitely easier to work amongst the guidelines of the HCL. Being someone new to VMware, I am following the HCL for sure.

My advice here is dependent on your time and interest. If you are curious and have the resources, test it. If not, do not bother testing it. Being a bit of a geek, I rather enjoy the idea of testing things just for the sake of trying them out. It has helped me learn many different ways to do things as well as just learning about technology. Which I certainly encourage.

Filed Under: Technet, Technology, Technology Uses Tagged With: Software, Software Upgrade, Technet

TechFieldDay here I come

on August 8, 2011

I head to Austin Tx for Tech Field Day 7 on Wednesday morning. Should be a good couple days of sessions and overall discussion. I am not sure at the moment who I am most looking forward to. I think all of the presenters have things that interest me.

The Presenters are:

Dell (Dell | @Dell_Storage)

SolarWinds (SolarWinds | @SolarWinds_Inc)

Symantec (Symantec | @Symantec)

Veeam (Veeam | @Veeam)

Some of them I have seen before, but there are new product releases since then and probably some new faces as well. I think the networking opportunity is what I like the best about Tech Field Day. In my neck of the weeds… er woods there aren’t many user groups so these events and the online stuff that tends to go with them are high on my list. Although the local tech stuff may be changing soon, but I cannot divulge that just yet.

I am looking forward to seeing some old friends again and definitely making some new ones. These events are busy, but in my past experiences they are enjoyable.

A bit of a thank you in advance to Stephen, Matt, and the rest of the TechFieldDay crew, without them, we wouldn’t be doing this. ~~Oh and for the links above, I apologize as the editor I can access right now doesn’t seem to HTML friendly – will fix those soon.~~ Update: Links Fixed… much better.

Filed Under: Events, TechFiedlDay, Technet Tagged With: Dell, networking, SolarWinds, Storage, Tech Field Day, Technet, Technology

Windows 7: Cool Feature – Location Aware Printing

on July 13, 2011

So it is 2011 and Windows 7 has been out for just about two years… wow. 2 years already, who can imagine? I have noticed that even though Windows 8 (or whatever it ends up being called) is likely just a few months away that there are still some great features in Windows 7 that may have gone uncovered by many. And if not, I am going to look at one of them here anyway.

This feature primarily applies to laptops and mobile computing, but it is still pretty sweet.

Cool Feature: Location Aware Printing
I carry my laptop with me most places and especially to work. Sure there is a PC under my desk, but sometimes the applications I own are just handy. When I brought my laptop to work after getting Windows 7 I added a default printer just the same as I might on an XP machine. Intending it to be for use in the office, and just complain that it wasn’t available when I was at home or on another network. No big deal.

The printer was named Office Printer so I would remember where the printer existed. After adding the printer, I left work for the day and went about my normal routine. When I got out my computer to check mail later that evening on my home network, the Office Printer, was nowhere to be found.

Maybe I deleted it before leaving so it wouldn’t just hang out unusable later. The next day, at the office, the Office Printer was right back where I had put it the day before.

A bit more research lead me to the feature explanation of Location Aware Printing. The printer is added dependent of the network you are connected to. Windows then hides the printer when you are connected to another network where this printer does not exist. Being someone who uses printers sparingly and does his best to name printers in a memorable fashion, I was quite pleased that Windows took care of visibility for these items without my help.

This printer feature is enabled by default but can be managed from the Devices and Printers window.

Managing Location Aware Printers

From the Device and Printers window, select a printer and click the manage default printers toolbar button.

Figure A

Location Aware Printers - image by Microsoft

Then select the option to change my default printer when I change networks.

In the select network list, choose the network you wish to manage the printer for

In the select printer list, choose the printer you want to set as the default, then click Add.

This printer added will be set as the default printer for the selected network.

To add default printers for other networks, repeat the steps above.

Note: The Location Aware Printers feature is only available in the Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate Editions of Windows 7.

For anyone who frequents multiple networks and needs printing capabilities, this feature could be just what the doctor ordered.

If you wish to disable this feature, select always use the same default printer in the Manage Default Printers dialog box.

Filed Under: General, Technet, Windows Client Tagged With: Gestalt IT, Help Desk, Helpful IT, Windows 7

Not supported and will not work, often these are birds of a different feather

on July 9, 2011

Filed Under: Technet Tagged With: General-ists, Getting into IT, Helpful IT

Using Key Management Servers to help with licensing and activation

on July 9, 2011

Microsoft is making license activation and the subsequent management of these licenses much less aggrivating. The key management server (KMS) affords a single point of activation for volume license clients that lives within their network. This helps organizations in a few ways, the biggest of which, in my opinion, is ease of management. The service works like this:

An administrator for the organization purchases some volume license agreements and receives both the KMS key and it’s old school counterpart the Multiple Activation Key (MAK). Instead of using several different MAK keys to activate all of these client licenses, the KMS server gets configured on one or two servers in the environment. This way the clients can validate against the KMS servers and not decrement any sort of activation count.

The way this works is really not too difficult. The clients that are using KMS keys (the default method in Windows 7 and Office 2010) check in continuously with the KMS Server(s) on the network. Licensing is validated approximately every 30 days to ensure the client can find the license server. If the client leaves the environment and cannot connect, the missing or failed activation notifications start appearing. Once the license has been revalidated against a KMS server, the balloons go away again for at least 30 days.

At first the constant check in method of licensing seemed very confusing, since I am used to the previous method of volume licensing, one key for all (or a good number of) your clients. When using Key Management Servers, the host machine gets the key installed for KMS, which is included with volume licenses. Once this key is installed for each product, the server can begin pushing out licensing to those clients. There is one caveat to this idea, each product that is going to use KMS requires different client counts to be discovered before it will issue a key.

For example, for Office 2010 Professional Plus the minimum count for KMS is 5 clients. When configuring it, you must install 5 clients before keys will be issued. Until this happens, the banner in each application will alert the user that it is not activated. Once five or more clients check in with the KMS server, Office on these clients will receive keys and the alerts will go away.

For Windows Server 2008 R2, the number of clients is also five. Windows 7 Enterprise clients however, require 25 clients to check in with KMS for keys to be issued. This is done to prevent people from installing extra clients to allow KMS licensing to work with fewer actual users.

Because the KMS server communicates with Microsoft licensing via the Internet, it determines if the host key licensing is active. Then your local server handles licensing and key distribution for clients. Each client will check in with a KMS server every 30 days to request a key. The keys are valid for 90 days, which will allow for the occasional traveller to continue using the products if they are out of the office when normal re-activation would occur. If you are in an environment with a great deal of road warriors who do not check in at the home office (physically or via VPN) regularly, using a key provided by KMS doesn’t make too much sense. There are keys included with Volume Licensing agreements for these users, they are called MAK keys and are covered next.

Multiple Activation Keys – MAK

These keys more closely resemble the old method of volume licensing, the one key for many clients scenario. You will not receive one key for all of your clients if the number of licenses you purchase is large and you still need to purchase a license for every instance of an application. The MAK key only provides you additional activations for the key, not additional licenses.

In large licensing runs, MAK keys might be split into thirds to prevent one key from being used for all of the clients. This is done to cut down on piracy of license keys. When licensing for most clients can be done by KMS this idea makes a lot of sense, especially when fewer MAK keys will be used in that scenario

Additional KMS benefits
Once you have gotten the Key Management Server setup in your environment, licensing is handled locally. This server will check in with Microsoft initially, but once that is completed, the clients obtain licensing from the server on your network. KMS servers will provide keys to any clients who request them in an environment which is also a plus.

Suppose I am traveling to a client office and my laptop, which is usually on my desk, uses KMS. If the client runs into its 30 day window while I am onsite at a client, it will look for a KMS server. If the office I am working in has a KMS server, it will issue the key and no functionality will be lost (or lovely warning messages presented).

Any KMS server found can accommodate a request from any client it can communicate with. Since there is no limit on the number of keys provided by KMS this is a great plus, less activation worries and work for administrators. The key provided by the other KMS server will keep my laptop happy for up to 90 days, even though it will start requesting a key after 30 days.

The benefit here is less management of licensing and activation. Sure you still have to purchase, record, and understand where licenses get used, but with KMS licensing servers, for most of your clients (at least where Microsoft licenses are concerned) the work is done through software with a little work on the front end, but not too much at all after that.

Hopefully this brief look at Microsoft’s Key Management Server licensing configuration will provide enough information for you to consider configuring a KMS server or two in your environment. At the time of this writing, KMS only works with products acquired through volume licensing.

Filed Under: Licensing Tagged With: IT Managers, Microsoft, Office 2010, Windows

Interesting post about bad software getting on computers

on June 22, 2011

This morning I read a great post by Ed Bott about what PC and Mac viruses or malware are and how they land on the same PCs or Macs. This had to come from the idea that “Macs don’t get viruses” that has been floating around since forever. Because as Bott points out:

“And categories don’t matter. These days, actual viruses are almost unheard of “

Bad software is bad software and platform or label makes no difference.

Of course there are those who see the Mac and the PC differently. The only thing different is in reality the vendor and user experience. Underneath the Mac OS lies Unix… a PC operating system if you take away the cute Mac GUI. I know there might be some fall out or comments for that Mac comment, but that’s OK, as the point is to enforce what Ed Bott has pointed out, any computing device can get bad software and that all users (or IT Pros who help users) should take steps to keep their compute device safe.

If you are in the IT arena, I encourage you to share his post with others you know. Click here to read the whole thing.

Filed Under: General, Mac, Windows Client Tagged With: Bad Software, Mac, Prevention, Windows

Using OmniFocus to get Perspective

on June 18, 2011

As someone who has tried more than once to keep up with the Getting Things Done school of thought I have been looking for a list keeping tool that works for me. It would have to be something that was easy to use and would be “trusted” so that the use keeps up. Thus far, nothing has really gotten it done. I am currently testing OmniFocus from OmniGroup and so far, it is quite the application.

What should OmniFocus be used for?

The idea behind OmniFocus, is to manage your lists of actions, projects, and reviewable items. Because of the portability of it, I prefer the version for iPad. It allows an easy way to see what is coming up and what I should be working on wherever I may be.

OmniFocus for iPad does a great job of allowing access to lists but there are features within the Mac application that aren’t natively available on the iPad.

Get some Perspective

Perspectives, on the Mac, are ways to see your lists in a new light. Suppose you want to see tasks with an estimated time of 30 minutes that you might complete while waiting for an appointment. You can create a perspective that will show only tasks that meet a given criteria, other than a context or project.

These are great for getting other looks at what you should be doing, but you cannot use them natively on the iPad. To use perspectives on the iPad, it will need to sync with your Mac. In addition, the perspective must be based on a context rather than a project.

Once synced, this new way to look at action lists might help the focus shift to a set of actions that can be accomplished in 30 minutes or less.

I have been an on again off again user of OmniFocus for quite some time, but the discovery of the perspectives feature and using the application on the iPad I might be able to keep it up this time. I certainly hope so.

Filed Under: Mac, Technet Tagged With: Mac, OmniFocus, OmniGroup

Microsoft Services in the cloud

on June 14, 2011

Earlier this year I was asked to participate in a customer trial of Microsoft Online Services including Exchange and SharePoint and I decided to give it a go. The biggest piece of the puzzle for me was Exchange 2010.

Being a new Mac owner and getting my feet wet with Office 2011, its connectivity with Exchange 2010 was ideal. My use for the Microsoft Online Services is for testing and not for everyday business use and/or connectivity. Overall the configuration of Outlook 2011 for Mac and Exchange 2010 was alright, but I will need to give it another go to feel good about it.

I am glad that those at Apptix and Ivy Worldwide allowed me to participate in the study. It has been interesting but I feel there is still more testing to be done. As I get more time I hope to publish more about my findings.

For more information, check out this link: http://mailstreet.communications-services.com/

Filed Under: General

The more you know

on June 13, 2011

Recently we had an issue with a dead battery in a vehicle. It was a larger vehicle and attempts to jump start it with our super fuel efficient Saturn ion went nowhere. Fortunately, my wife has a friend at work who was able to come over and help us out with their also larger vehicle.

Upon jumping the battery we took the car to Auto Zone and everything checked out ok. The point is not to point out my rather lacking skills with automobiles, but rather to point out that it is ok to lean on or ask for help with things that you do not know much about.

This is certainly the case with IT. There are just far too many technologies to allow one person to know them all. When you are unsure, it is ok to make an effort to learn, but at some point asking someone with the knowledge is likely the safest bet. Not only will it help solve the problem in a quicker fashion, but will allow you to learn from those who help you out.

Remember though to help when others need it

Once you have asked for help with something you do not understand, do not forget or suddenly become too busy to help those you have leaned on with the things you do understand. In the case of the less than starting SUV, if asked, my computer skills are available if needed. It is the least I could do.

Be nice (and helpful) to those around you as you never know when you may need their help.

As an aside, I did get to drive a Cadillac SRX (if only to move it into the garage).

Filed Under: General, Gestalt IT, Technet Tagged With: Computers, Dead Battery, General, Helpful IT